Many surgical interventions require the placement of a medical device into the body. One prevalent surgical intervention often requiring such a device is percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (“PTCA”). Many individuals suffer from circulatory disease caused by a progressive blockage of the blood vessels, which often leads to hypertension, ischemic injury, stroke, or myocardial infarction. Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty is a medical procedure performed to increase blood flow through a damaged artery and is now the predominant treatment for coronary vessel stenosis. The increasing use of this procedure is attributable to its relatively high success rate and its minimal invasiveness compared with coronary bypass surgery. A limitation associated with PTCA is the abrupt closure of the vessel which can occur soon after angioplasty. Insertion of small spring-like medical devices called stents into such damaged vessels has proved to be a better approach to keep the vessels open as compared to systemic pharmacologic therapy.
While often necessary and beneficial for treating a variety of medical conditions, metal or polymeric devices (e.g., stents, catheters . . . ), after placement in the body, can give rise to numerous physiological complications. Some of these complications include: increased risk of infection; initiation of a foreign body response resulting in inflammation and fibrous encapsulation; and initiation of a detrimental wound healing response resulting in hyperplasia and restenosis. These problems have been particularly acute with the placement of stents in damaged arteries after angioplasty.
One promising approach is to provide the device with the ability to deliver bioactive agents in the vicinity of the implant. By doing so, some of the harmful effects associated with the implantation of medical devices can be diminished. Thus, for example, antibiotics can be released from the surface of the device to minimize the possibility of infection, and antiproliferative drugs can be released to inhibit hyperplasia. Another benefit to the local release of bioactive agents is the avoidance of toxic concentrations of drugs encountered when given systemically at sufficiently high doses to achieve therapeutic concentrations at the site where they are needed.
Although the potential benefit from using such bioactive agent-releasing medical devices is great, development of such medical devices has been slow. Progress has been hampered by many challenges, including: 1) the requirement, in some instances, for long term (i.e., at least several weeks) release of bioactive agents; 2) the need for a biocompatible, non-inflammatory device surface; 3) the demand for significant durability (and particularly, resistance to delamination and cracking), particularly with devices that undergo flexion and/or expansion when being implanted or used in the body; 4) concerns regarding the ability of the device to be manufactured in an economically viable and reproducible manner; and 5) the requirement that the finished device can be sterilized using conventional methods.
Implantable medical devices capable of delivering medicinal agents from hydrophobic polymer coatings have been described. See, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,214,901; U.S. Pat. No. 6,344,035; U.S. Publication No. 2002-0032434; U.S. Publication No. 2002-0188037; U.S. Publication No. 2003-0031780; U.S. Publication No. 2003-0232087; U.S. Publication No. 2003-0232122; PCT Publication No. WO 99/55396; PCT Publication No. WO 03/105920; PCT Publication No. WO 03/105918; PCT Publication No. WO 03/105919 which collectively disclose, inter alia, coating compositions having a bioactive agent in combination with a polymer component such as polyalkyl(meth)acrylate or aromatic poly(meth)acrylate polymer and another polymer component such as poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) for use in coating device surfaces to control and/or improve their ability to release bioactive agents in aqueous systems.